Praying outside the mosque in Jama Masjid 

Finding Gamthiwala is half the fun; the other half is going through stacks and stacks of hand printed block fabrics. The shop is located next door to the mausaleum of Ahmed Shah in the back of the very large Jama Mosque in Old Town.  But which of the Jama Mosque door leads to the mausoleum? Do we leave our shoes at the door or can we place them sole to sole as you place your hands for prayer and pick them up on the way out?  Is it the east, west, or south door? So we try them all passing goats and disturbing a hen with her chicks.

And Gamthiwala turns out to be better than expected. C finds it. The entry way is a narrow  door next to a pol and the climb up to the second floor is worth it all.  Cottons and silks, double dipped indigo and silks with cotton backings are all separated according to fabric and price. No pressure to buy anything. We have 30 minutes for the store is run by Muslims and they go to prayer and lunch at 2. Scarves are pulled out, fabrics can be touched and smoothed. It's this textile lover's paradise

Gamthiwala:s door 

Mausoleum of Ahmed Shah

The helmet law is compulsary for one person unless no one is looking

Ahmedabad...progressive tradition

Swaminarayan Mandir Lakupur

 How is it possible to value the old while modernizing for the present? Ahmedabad's citizens are asking just that of their council representatives and via the opinion pages of their daily newspapers.  This is a city of 6 million and growing fast. The buildings are a conglomeration of 14th century Islamic architecture, Persian, British influence, Raja extravagance, slumdog poverty, Hindu, Jain, Christian, Buddhist, you name it. So while Ahmedabad as a whole is modernizing, they are maintaining the buildings of the Old City by refurbishing inwardly without destroying the surface.

Apparently this is an old city who self-divided into self-contained neighborhoods with separate wells and pols. Each doorway led to a specific cult, religion, trade, with a latticed face room above the open door, pol, to allow or warn others. The city has contracted with many of these pol neighborhoods, so heritage walks can be conducted through homes. One Hindu community of 300 family members has reaped the benefits of daily, 365 days a year, walks through their homes and streets by having indoor plumbing. 

So we are taking advantage of this and touring with 13 Sri Lankan architectural students who are keeping silent about their foreignness, so as to pay Indian prices.  We notice what they notice. They notice the French wood frames tucked into the Islamic bird feeders.  So we interact with the Maned Chowk vegetable vendors, the Jumma Masjjid mosque, ragamuffin Ragasthan gypsies trying to fit in with the influx of rural Gujarats. No hostilities, just open doors and smiles. For their way of life is valued enough to be seen without judgment.

Pol over the open doorway

Our Sri Lankan architectual friends

Don't leave the condo... Chennai

Our airbnb condo could be anywhere. We have a 2 bedroom, 2 bath, kitchen, and living area overlooking the neighbors wide open backyard. We are ac, internet, 500 tv channels, fresh water delivered weekly. Our condo is on the second floor, B minus as C calls it. The other buildings are A and C.  Three squat buildings with paved parking for motorcycles and cars. Families walk their pooches. Dominos pizza delivers. And Uber is a favorite mode of traveling while doing business. 

But follow the paved parking to the street and it changes abruptly. Sidewalks are inbetween non'existant and started but never finished to sand poured and left to scatter. Walking is at your own risk in Chennai. The two lane road accommodates 4 and even 5 vehicles at times. Motorcycles and tuctucs push through with just a hair´s breath inbetween cars. Horns bellow. Cars inch in between what could have been a sidewalk and now usuable lane.  Motorcyclists jump the only noticeable curb and skim past a congested area. It is chaos. Total chaos.  C says he has driven in every country, over 40 countries, but he wouldn´t take the responsibility of driving in India.  It´s unpleasant driving. And it´s very unpleasant walking.  

There are times that I want to take a tuctuc for just a quarter of a block, so I won´t have to step over sludge, dodge a car, shake sand out of my shoe, jump over an open yet not finished government sewar line.  

I like walking. I´m a strong walker. I like walking city streets, parks, beaches, around mosques and temples, through forests, even malls. But this is not walking. This is survival. Take one half step past a broken tile and into the street or over exposed wires, and it´s an Indian hit and run.  Chennai is a city of 12 million and it just may be too big for me.

Romantic comedy in Chennai called Kadhalum Kadandhu Pogum

Romantic comedies have a language all their own.  First there is the female. Strong, headstrong, serious about living life to it's fullest, altering from her parent's lives, but usually supported by a father who has been won over by the new university graduate.

Then you have the male.  Sometimes a rogue, sometimes dapper, always handsome, never attached to a woman, a man's man who keeps the company of other men by drinking, kids like him, he takes young men under his wing to teach them the art of survival, has a heart of gold, and a sense of humor as long as you don't make him angry. In this case, he is the enforcer for the Tamil Mafia. 

She moves to the city for the dream job, enjoys life with her female roommates until the music changes and the boss is carted away by the police, her job is belly up, she has to move to a small apartment without letting her parents know, HE lives in the apartment across the way, she interviews for new jobs but has to deal wtih potential bosses propositioning her, ridiculing her, and never hiring her. 

It's not a love match. It's a friendship for two unlikely people who learn to respect and care for one another without loosing touch with who they truly are.  Do they end up together? Of course not. Were we to think this was a romantic twosome? Never. But did the director include a Bollywood dance number, a couple of fight scenes, wonderful wardrobe changes, a thoroughly sanitized and clean India? You bet.

It's 103 degrees out most days, and a day at the movies whether it's Tamil, Hindi, or English just didn't matter.  Staying out of the hot sun was going to be the magic. Who would have thought that showing up two hours early for the movie, watching couples and groups eat, talk, and play arcade games, as well as see a lovely Tamil movie would be the added bonus.

Brahmin Hindu Temple in Fort Kochi, India

  Sree Varadendra Kalyana Mandapan is a huge golden colored solid walled structure that covers 6 square blocks of any major city. Handmade brass ornaments and fittings from the 1500's follow the roof line. This is "upper caste Brahmin" says Rahim.  "Four doors. Only for upper Brahmin's," and he points to the "hindus only" sign.  Even within the Brahmin caste, there seems to be levels; are these castes as well? I need to study more.

  
The lower Brahmin's attend an older and much smaller Hindu Temple across the street. And the poorest of the poor attend a temple, down a back alley, so dilapidated I assumed it was rubble.  The oil lamps in the upper Hindu temple are 10 -12 feet tall and polished nightly to remove the drippings from the devotional oil burning.  The four doors, one on each side of this mini-village are open to the world, so we can peek in but never enter. The everyday people's oil lamp across the street is 7 feet and obviously used but is protected within the smaller temple that is open only in the mornings and the evenings.  The oil lamp at the poorest temple is outside the temple and is crusted with years of monsoons and intense heat as well as the black oil used to honor and to request favors.
  
Rasheed definitely has a take. His voice lowers to a whisper when he shows us the wooden hovels built inbetween spaces once used as gardening sheds for the upper Brahmins and now used as homes for a family.  We stand at the west door of the Brahmin's Temple and he reads the poster announcing dance classes for young children while well-dressed young girls show up with their fathers for these classes. The fathers nod as I say hello but quickly dismiss us; this is their private sanctuary and we will never belong. The Brahmin's elephant is chained and housed in quarters not far from the north gate in a stable with 500 year old teak beams. The upper caste Brahmin's private nursery school with 9 classrooms are across the street from a private park and fountain used only once a year and only by the Brahmins.  This is absolute luxury in an area of extreme poverty. Men selling handfuls of wood outside a vegetable stand is the norm. Buying a school notebook and uniform for the average citizen is weighed against eating well for a week. But the Brahmin's flaunt what they have. They literally walk over not around street vendors.

It's an interesting phenomenom, for I am obviously new to this sitatuion.  Altars with gods and oil lamps are scattered and worshipped throughout this area, but the large imposing building is used by just a few. It's almost like they keep their doors open to let others see what they cannot have - quiet shadded sanctuary to read a newspaper or pass time chitchatting, classes, a gym, a clean temple, even small concession stands.)